Tourist Attraction in Ariccia:Parco Chigi

The Chigi park in Ariccia (also known as Barco Chigi) is a municipal green area of ​​twenty-eight hectares located in the municipality of Ariccia, in the Castelli Romani area. The first nucleus of the park dates back to the sixteenth century, however the current conformation is due to a series of interventions carried out by the Chigi family, who owned the park between 1661 and 1988: today the whole area is a property of the Municipality of Ariccia . The Chigi park is annexed to the historic Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia: some well-known architects, such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Carlo Fontana, took part in the construction of the palace and park complex. The park is particularly important, within the regional park of the Castelli Romani: in fact it is one of the few green areas of the Alban Hills, in which there was no penetration of the chestnut, but the oldest plant species have survived, mostly oaks. During the sixteenth century, the original nucleus of the park was formed, conceived as a hunting reserve: during the first half of the seventeenth century, the Uccelliera and the Vignola were enclosed. The Uccelliera arrangement dates back to the years around 1628, when Bernardino Savelli obtained the title of Duke of Ariccia from Pope Urban VIII. Near the Uccelliera was a ruin of late-medieval construction, called "il Bove": it is conceivable that this is an ancient church dedicated to San Rocco located outside the walls in the locality called Prati di San Rocco. La Vignola, another seventeenth-century nucleus of the park, is located on the other side of a rainwater gully, and was originally used as a vineyard. The park, even after the fence of a vast area that extended from the mouth of the gully in Vallericcia to the Pietrara, was rather limited compared to the current extension and did not reach the new palace that the Savellis had built at the end of the houses in Ariccia , and that it was the original nucleus of the present Palazzo Chigi. The Garden, the Bottino and a part of the Prati di San Rocco were delimited in the park: in this period it is assumed that five or six fountains were located in the park and there were three entrance portals. In 1850, due to the construction of the Ariccia bridge that crossed the gully representing the fastest connection between Albano and Ariccia, a strip at the edge of the Chigi park was expropriated by the papal government: the Peschiera was thus abandoned, and with it also an entrance which was found under the arches of the bridge. Text processing: Giovambattista Spagnuolo (Myooni)